Another Po’Man’s lunch:
1 English muffin, toasted
Spread with peanut butter, strawberry jam (or honey if you prefer), cream cheese and half a banana.
Tastes good but I’m sure I’ll be starving at around 4pm. Luckily I’ve got some rice and an avocado. Simple meals are nice.
What do you do with half an Everything Bagel, a slice of homemade bread (thanks coworker’s husband for being a food god who likes to share), Olive oil, Italian seasoning and 1 pear and 1 orange that you forgot to eat earlier in the week?
Panzanella!
Cut the bread into bite sized squares (about 1″x1″) and toast until browned but not completely dry
Mix olive oil with seasoning, salt, pepper and a little vinegar if you have it.
Slice orange and pear into bowl. Top with bread and drizzle oil over top. Mix and enjoy.
May need extra oil for dipping if the bread gets too hard.
A nice, and out-of-the-ordinary treat.
I hate the way my mustache smells after eating pizza. And I just trimmed this morning, too! You’d think if it were short enough this wouldn’t be a problem, but somehow the grease finds its way there.
I’m sorry, I know this is definitely stoking your appetite to eat something appealing. Lets switch gears here while I share my quick and easy recipe for fried rice lunch goodness. My stomach was grumbling at work yesterday and I only had a few random ingredients with which to work,(cooked brown rice, a jar of homemade spicy pickles w/ onions, fresh almonds, etc) but together they turned out surprisingly tasty. Here’s what I did:
Rough chop a handful of almonds and toast on medium heat, shaking often until fragrant. Set almonds aside. Put 3-4 teaspoons of olive oil in frying pan and warm on medium. Add half a cup cooked brown rice, stirring occasionally for one to two minutes (some of the rice may jump out of the pan, so be careful). Toss in quartered homemade spicy pickles and onions (and a little pickle juice if you like), the almonds, 1 packet soy sauce (I prefer a non-MSG soy like Kikoman) and 1 teaspoon strawberry jam (Mine is with rosemary*) for a hit of sweetness. Stir until combined and hot, but don’t leave too long as jam/soy sauce will start to stick/burn to pan. Serve and Boom! Quick fried rice!
I know it may not sound appetizing, but I was verysatisfied, and I realized its all vegetarian. Its amazing how good toasted almonds can make a dish taste.
*There is a local merchant here who makes jams and such under the name New Forest. She has some of the best I’ve tried and you can find her online. Look it up, her Orange Marmalade is like no other.
We ordered Indian food to the office on Monday, and a small container of what tasted like a ginger & nutmeg rice pudding was included in the bag. It was quite tasty so I started looking up recipes for ginger rice pudding and almost immediately stumbled upon this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/dining/143mrex-web.html
I realized, “Hey, we’ve got a whole bunch of rice left over from the Indian food, as well as milk, butter and sugar in the office. All I’d need to bring in are a couple of eggs and that fresh ginger root I’ve been trying to decide what to do with, and Voila! Rice pudding for the whole office! I’ll comment on how it turns out later, but I couldn’t help but notice the link in this recipe to this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/dining/14mini.html?ref=dining
Time was whenever you had leftovers and didn’t know what to do with ‘em, you made soup. Guess there is more than one way to repurpose dinner. Using day-old bagels for bread pudding is old hat to me, but I’m curious to see what other fun creations can be made in the kitchen. Anyone else have any fun food ideas on what to do with otherwise boring leftovers?
Noticed that your typical BBQ fare was way on sale at Ralphs yesterday (probably post holiday weekend leftovers) so I purchased a 3 pound London Broil (which is apparently fancy talk for skirt steak) for 6ish dollars, which was a great deal. Because it was the roomie’s birthday, I thought it might be nice to cook him something different, and we’ve only experimented with steak once before, so I decided to give it a go. I also thought it might be a good excuse to try out a steak in the new skillet since up to now its really only cooked ground chuck. So, the steak was cut in half and the broiler was turned to high. I greased up the skillet with olive oil and placed it in the oven above the broiler so it could get all nice and hot. In the meantime I started seasoning the other cut, first with lemon juice, then garlic salt and Montreal Steak Seasoning (Lowry’s brand, I believe, the one without any Hydrogenated soy bean oil in it). I rubbed some olive oil into the meat and then a few dashes of Worcester sauce. This cut I placed in a Pyrex dish on top of a half a sliced onion and 5 cloves of smashed garlic. On top I poured maybe 1/2 cup of red wine. Probably a mistake because I realized the wine started to wash off all the careful seasoning I’d prepared. So I added a little more garlic salt (I’ve found with steaks it pays to be generous with the seasonings) and some ground rosemary. Under the broiler it went, 3 minutes on one side, turn, 2 minutes on side two, turn, add pat of butter and cook for 1-2 minutes, and just to be safe I turned it once more and added a 2nd pat, 60 more seconds and Voila, it was ready to be cooled. Now, while that magic was happening, I had seasoned the second cut with just the steak seasoning and some of the garlic salt. This one was a quick and easy cook, dropped it onto the skillet and popped it back into the oven then listened to the satisfying his of crackling meat. About 3 minutes on each side, then the pat of butter trick made this a decent steak to be enjoyed, though sadly, it still needed a bit of seasoning. My skillet has a long way to go, I suppose.
I had hoped to make sandwiches with these, but the meat had not marinated so it was a bit on the tough side. Since we had no tomatoes, and because I was feeling saucy, I spread some mild salsa from a bottle (yes, I know, epicureans commence with wailing and teeth gnashing) on a piece of shepherds bread then topped with a few slices of Brie and popped this into the toaster oven. With the sliced steak on top of this and some of the onions from the cooking dish, the combination of flavors actually turned out really well.
Lessons for next time: Marinate your meat in the morning if you’re going to cook it at night (insert juvenile joke here) and poor the wine around the meat, not directly on top of it. Not a bad dinner overall.
I was struck when reading this article today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_wine
I’ve tried Canton, and a number of different ales and beers, but never a wine made w/ ginger. It makes me curious. I’ll have to head down to Vendome and see if they carry it. I’m sure it would be ideal for a warm, mulled drink. Anyone ever had the pleasure of trying this before?
Had D’s mother over for dinner the other night, and served a ham and brie quiche and some steamed broccoli and garlic bread (many thanks to my roommate and my lovely lady for all the help in the kitchen). My piece de resistance was to be dessert. I had gleaned some ideas at my local supermarket when I saw recipe cards for baked/poached pears in the produce section. Since delicious apples (both golden and red) were on sale I decided to improvise with them. I peeled and quartered the apples, removing the cores then drizzled a bit of maple syrup over the pieces. These I topped with allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then some ground pecans and a few bits of butter to prevent burning. Placing these in a pie tin I filled said tin about 1/4 full with some Kirkland Brand Tawny Port (not particularly good for drinking, but it was cheap and I figured it would do the trick for cooking), covered the tins and placed them in a 375 oven for about an hour. The apples came out smelling and looking wonderful. I sprinkled coarse salt and raw sugar and D was kind enough to whip up some vanilla cream to top along with a whole pecan or two. They were well received but my complaint was that they seemed a bit too sweet to me. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I might do to make this a little more user friendly? I’m thinking lose the raw sugar and possibly even the maple syrup as the port and the apples may be sweet enough. Also considering ground ginger to add a little kick. One last question, any words on whether its necessary to cover this dish while you cook it? Would it be better uncovered (nuts always taste better toasted) or would that run the risk of evaporating all the wine and making a sticky, inedible mess? I look to my fellow gourmands for advice. Rest assured I will be making this recipe again, and then I can post pictures.
A good deal of my regular gang of geekery was unable to attend Trek Tuesday yesternight, and an overabundance of work activity left me bereft of ideas for dinner. Luckily, my old college pal and former roommate, Dan, mentioned warm bread and olive oil and immediately my mind was made up.
Our spread was simple yet satisfying: A Panera baked ciabatta loaf warmed in the toaster oven for a few minutes, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic with a few spices for dipping, strips of pecorino and Red Leicester (good British cheddar-like cheese), some kalamata olives and a few cocktail onions, and voila! A feast fit for peasants! 
I dont think we got any photos of it, but Tuesday is Trek night and we try to have a theme for dinner where all participants bring an ingredient and we find a way to get everyone fed. Last night was Stir Fry night!
We started with strips of fresh chicken breast, sauteed in vegetable oil in that huge wok that rarely sees the light of day. I spiced it up with garlic salt, pepper, smoked paprika, some celery seed, a bit of rosemary and some tumeric for fun. To this we added diced red and orange bell pepper, celery, and one diced clementine, peel and all. Apparently citrus with thin peels (like tangerines) can be cooked and made edible quite easily. We stir fried this for a bit and then I added just a few slivers of fresh ginger root for fun, and a heavy amount of sesame seeds. I was planning on throwing in some cashews too, but forgot. Served over rice and it got some good reactions from the crowd. May have been better with soy sauce or some sugar to cut down the tart of the clementine peel but overall great!
Last night was an interesting experiment; D had brought over half a baguette which, due to my engrossment in a great Peter Jackson film, I’d neglected to properly put away. 20 hours later its a bit on the stale side, but not beyond salvation. Split lengthwise, and filled with leftover taco blend (ground beef, onion, red bell pepper, garlic powder and cumin, sauteed) topped with some shredded cheddar and a few green onions and tomatoes, then warmed well in a toaster oven made it a crunchy taco roll. Granted the baguette was small so I had to divide the ingredients between the two halves, but this happy amalgam serves as one more reminder to buy baguettes more often. Side note: cranberry relish w/ ground beef, not a bad combo. The sweet tang reminds me of the Tajine we had in Morocco. Is there a meat that cranberries wouldn’t be good with….
